{"id":85619,"date":"2018-03-29T15:52:40","date_gmt":"2018-03-29T13:52:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=85619"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:22:58","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:22:58","slug":"we-arent-around-to-make-students-smarter-but-more-critical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2018\/03\/29\/we-arent-around-to-make-students-smarter-but-more-critical\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We aren\u2019t around to make students smarter, but more critical\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

If the university wants to educate students so that they can handle complex issues in today\u2019s society \u2013 climate change, inequality, robotisation \u2013 it needs to take a fundamentally different approach, says education pioneer Liesbeth Noordegraaf-Eelens (and the next dean of Erasmus University College, as far as we\u2019re concerned).<\/p>\n

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They were peeved to say the least. Philosopher and economist Liesbeth Noordegraaf-Eelens remembers it well: the first time she visited Witte de With with University College students (no\u2026 not the bars, but the contemporary art centre located in the same street). She smiles thinking back. There they stood, like stubborn teenagers, surrounded by abstract art. Basically saying \u2018this is boring\u2019 and \u2018my four-year-old nephew could do this\u2019. And: \u2018what are we doing here, as academics?\u2019<\/p>\n

Sure, it took a while. But at a certain point, the grumbling turns into a discussion \u2013 although it\u2019s difficult to name the tipping point. Someone asks a question. Or decides to give one of those installations the benefit of the doubt and starts reading the exhibition text. And yes, at the end of the afternoon you have four or five students \u2013 never the whole group, of course \u2013 whose conceptual framework has been left slightly unsettled. That moment \u2013 when, thanks to your initiative, a student starts seeing the world in a slightly different light \u2013 that\u2019s the reward. She\u2019s beaming while she tells the story.<\/p>\n

Echo<\/h2>

I find Liesbeth Noordegraaf-Eelens (1973) in the renovated neoclassical meeting room at Erasmus University College, in the heart of Rotterdam city centre. It\u2019s still early, almost 9 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. The street market just around the corner on Binnenrotte is already teeming with people. But here, in the former Education Museum building, I could hear the clack of her heels echo through the empty white marble lobby as she strode toward me.<\/p>\n

It was time for a follow-up meeting. The thing is: we had already spoken before, for the same article \u2013 about the importance of education. But over the past few weeks she had given the subject a lot of thought, as well as discussing it with others. This had led to, in her words, a \u2018number of fresh insights\u2019 that would be a shame to leave out of \u2018our story\u2019 (a good example of her psychological makeup: she\u2019s serious, driven, always looking for ways to do something different or better. Her insights develop in the course of her discussions with other people: she\u2019s a strong advocate of \u2018peer-reviewed education\u2019, she will tell me later on).<\/p>\n

Noordegraaf-Eelens is a dyed-in-the-wool \u2018Erasmian\u2019. After graduating with honours from EUR\u2019s Economics and Philosophy programmes, she earned her doctorate in 2010 \u2013 in the midst of the financial crisis \u2013 with research into communication by central bank directors. She has a number of books to her name, with titles like De overspelige bankier<\/em> (\u2018The Adulterous Banker\u2019) and Op naar de volgende crisis <\/em>(\u2018On our way to the next crisis\u2019). She\u2019s a member of all sorts of prestigious advisory bodies \u2013 as befits a highly-regarded scholar. But that\u2019s beside the point today. Right now, she\u2019s mainly interested in the state of higher education \u2013 because something\u2019s going on there, and it doesn\u2019t look good.<\/p>\n

Convinced that they are right<\/h2>
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\n\t\t\u2018It\u2019s the university\u2019s duty to softly shake students out of their comfortable cocoons. Get rid of those blinders\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

As a lecturer, you basically have three responsibilities, she explains. You train someone until he or she is capable of performing solid scientific research, you prepare students for the employment market and you help them become members of society.<\/p>\n

And specifically the latter point is one that we risk losing sight of at our universities. It\u2019s quite common for academics to be\u2026 well, how to put it\u2026 convinced that they are right. Because after all, don\u2019t they have knowledge on their side?<\/p>\n

She remembers a conversation that she had in connection with her thesis, with then President Nout Wellink of the Dutch central bank. Those central bankers definitely knew what the best course of action was \u2013 including in a time of crisis. Except nobody listened to them. \u201cWellink told the country: you don\u2019t have to worry, the Netherlands is in good shape. And there was enough reason to assume he was right. But the rest of the country didn\u2019t believe him. And if everyone thinks<\/em> that things have taken a wrong turn, then suddenly everything does<\/em> go awry. This tells you that it\u2019s not enough to have an answer ready for a particular problem. Occasionally, it\u2019s more important to understand how someone else looks at that problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Noordegraaf-Eelens, it\u2019s the university\u2019s duty to softly shake students out of their comfortable cocoons. Get rid of those blinders. That\u2019s why she takes her students in tow, all across town, and gives them assignments that they need to work on \u2018in the field\u2019. At IMC Weekendschool, for example, where children from disadvantaged backgrounds can get additional schooling \u2013 an opportunity that the neediest families tend to pass up, however (after struggling with this, those students conclude: shit, this is more than just a marketing problem).<\/p>\n

Not alone<\/h2>\n\t
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\n\t\t\u2018To open doors to new perspectives, academia needs the creativity and involvement of the arts\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

To understand the world beyond the lecture halls; to really understand it \u2013 in other words, not merely swoop in and offer a piece of non-committal advice, \u2018consultancy style\u2019 \u2013 you need to hit the road. She is absolutely convinced that universities can\u2019t hack it on their own. To open doors to new perspectives, academia needs the creativity and involvement of the arts. Combine this with the scholar\u2019s critical and analytical mind-set and you\u2019ve got a gold mine.<\/p>\n

Not that all her students are always thirsting for these experiences, though\u2026 not even the omnivores who tend to register for Erasmus University College\u2019s Liberal Arts & Sciences programme. They aren\u2019t always wild about working in teams either. So, she lets them learn it.<\/p>\n

She doesn\u2019t have to make those students smarter, she says. They\u2019re already smart. They need to become involved and critical \u2018world citizens\u2019, who speak more than one \u2018language\u2019 and are aware that they\u2019re only a small piece of the puzzle. Do you think the only people you need to solve the climate crisis are environmental scientists? Or that you can reform the financial system with just economists? It\u2019s what UNESCO calls Education for Sustainable Development<\/a>. Or, as Noordegraaf-Eelens puts it: you can\u2019t save the world on your own.<\/p>\n

Handful of peers<\/h2>

In the meantime, the university is hard on its way to becoming a research factory. Those aren\u2019t her words \u2013 it\u2019s a complaint heard more and more often in its halls and corridors over the past few years. Despite reform movements like Science in Transition and Rethink, scholarship seems more focussed than ever on publishing papers for a handful of international peers. The unspoken consensus seems to be that those aspiring to a strong university career need to focus on research. You try to spend as little time as possible on teaching. There\u2019s even a name for it: onderwijslast<\/em> (\u2018education load\u2019). And you outsource these tasks to ever-younger colleagues with a temporary contract, or dig up last year\u2019s PowerPoint slides for a second run. There\u2019s a lack of structural funding \u2013 let alone time. Those with a heart for teaching schedule a share of their work in their spare time.<\/p>\n

For the past three years, Noordegraaf-Eelens served as the head of both the Humanities and Economics & Business departments at Erasmus University College, the fast-tracked brainchild of the previous rector, Henk Schmidt. She has launched numerous partnerships with private companies, government agencies and Rotterdam non-profits, including a prestigious double degree programme with Codarts and Willem de Kooning Academy. And as one of the figureheads of the EUC, she is seen as a dream successor to project dean Maarten Frens (the university launched a new search in early 2018 after a previous round of applications did not yield a suitable candidate).<\/p>\n

Full auditorium<\/h2>\n\t
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\n\t\t\u2018You always need to keep asking your audience what can be improved\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

She was already standing in front of a full auditorium age 21 (\u201calthough it could also have been 22\u201d). Coordinator Roland Spekl\u00e9 of the Costs and Profit subject had asked her at the time whether she would mind handling the math lectures. She hadn\u2019t even graduated at that point, but it went OK. A mere three years later \u2013 in the 1996-1997 academic year \u2013 she was voted lecturer of the year.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s able to explain things in a way that people can understand them, she says. And she got straight to the point, asking students where there was room for improvement. One time she had made new sheets \u2013 they looked very fine indeed (this is back when they still used overhead projectors). So she exclaimed, proud as a peacock: well guys, do you like them or not?<\/p>\n

Well, no, said the students, we actually like making the sum together with you on the board a lot more. Noordegraaf-Eelens: \u201cI thought: how\u2019s that possible?! But then I realised they were right. And that you always need to keep asking your audience what can be improved. If you hope they\u2019ll eventually tell you of their own accord, you can wait until the cows come home. Working together also means taking the initiative for dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n

A profession in its own right<\/h2>
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Working together with colleagues at Willem de Kooning Academy and Codarts, she has developed a new education method and philosophy. Transdisciplinary<\/em> is how she sums it up: a programme that combines the scientific method and the arts to arrive at new solutions for complicated social issues. When pressed for an example, she refers to the approach taken at Studio Roosegaarde, or how Blue City is experimenting with sustainability.<\/p>\n

The format is a scaled-up version of problem-based learning \u2013 \u2018project-based\u2019 \u2013 in which the students themselves go in search of the problem. What does she need for this approach? She isn\u2019t one to make a big fuss about it, but alright, she\u2019d like to speak from the heart for a moment: why can\u2019t the university show for once that academic education should be seen as a profession in its own right? A profession that calls for a unique set of skills, which are fundamentally different to the skills that make a good researcher.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why she has developed a ten-day crash course for lecturers participating in her Rotterdam Arts & Science Lab (RASL). Because for a new transdisciplinary approach like this, you can\u2019t make it on enthusiasm alone.<\/p>\n

The university needs to create the right conditions that encourage individual lecturers to take teaching seriously. By means of the aforementioned \u2018peer-reviewed education\u2019, for example. Because it remains a bit strange to see that academic staff rely on evaluations made by students rather than fellow professionals.<\/p>\n

Why not let colleagues see you in action? As well as people from the field. She\u2019s already doing this: occasionally someone else joins her class for the day. But be sure to scale it up. Professionalise. And she\u2019s itching to set up a project-based master programme, in addition to the double degree programme offered within the Rotterdam Arts & Science Lab (RASL). Art and science merged into a single master programme, completely multi-, sorry: trans<\/em>-disciplinary. With a broad smile: \u201cYes, that\u2019s where I\u2019d start.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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De redactie<\/h2>\n\t\t\n\t\t
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